My invention relates to floating buoys used to mark the position of an underwater feature such as a reef, a sunken wreck or a deep depression in the sea floor inhabited by schools of fish.
Many fishermen use floating buoys to mark locations that they believe to contain an abundance of fish. Normally the markers, whether homemade or purchased from stores selling fishermen's supplies, consist of a pair of floatable hollow balls connected by a hollow cylinder, with a line connected and wound onto the hollow cylinder. The other end of the line is connected to a lead weight or similar anchoring means.
When the fisherman wishes to mark a given location, he places the marker on the surface of the water directly over the location. The weight of the anchoring means causes the floating balls to rotate as the line runs out until the anchoring means reaches the sea bottom. But strong tidal currents, winds and waves tend to move the floating buoy often resulting in the anchoring means being torn loose from the sea bottom and thus the floating buoy no longer accurately marks the location of the undersea feature.
As the captain of a chartered Florida fishing boat for 25 years, I have examined a number of patents proposing various designs for marker buoys such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,755,838; 4,443,203; 4,601,125; 4,976,641 and 5,073,135, but so far as I am aware no buoy presently on the market or shown in the prior patents for marking undersea fishing spots will remain in position over the fishing spot in high winds or heavy seas.
I have designed, constructed and tested in the Gulf of Mexico a marker buoy which remains in position despite high winds and heavy seas. My marker buoy includes a hollow cylindrical chamber with a pair of parallel spaced apart flat annular edged flanges projecting from the outer wall of the chamber to form a spool and an axially positioned annular flange at one end of the chamber. An elongated hollow cylindrical tube is securely fastened into the annular flange of the chamber and a cored floatable ball preferably of foamed polystyrene is slidably mounted on the tube. A cap is affixed to the end of the tube to prevent the ball from sliding off the tube.
A line preferably about 200 feet in length and made of nylon is fastened to the cylinder and wound around the spool between the two parallel flanges of the chamber and a weight preferably in the form of a 1 1/2 pound Danforth anchor is secured to the free end of the nylon line.
A series of sea water entry holes and air vent holes are drilled in the walls of the cylindrical chamber.
My marker buoy is placed on the surface of the water directly above the undersea spot to be marked with the axis of the chamber and tube parallel to the water's surface where the buoy floats on the ball and chamber. As the anchor descends toward the sea bottom the unwinding line causes the chamber to rotate until the anchor hits the bottom. As the chamber begins to fill with water, its weight causes the buoy to tip and the line is trapped and locked in position within a notch in the annular edge of lower flange of the spool. This prevents the line from further unwinding and fixes the position of the buoy closely adjacent the undersea spot intended to be marked.
The chamber, now underwater, continues to fill with sea water until the buoy assumes a vertical position rather than its original horizontal position on the surface of the water. The hollow tube and its floatable ball keep the marker in sight on the surface of the sea, with the ball sliding up and down on the tube acting as a shock absorber which prevents wave action, high winds or heavy seas from tearing the anchor loose from the sea bottom and moving the entire marker buoy away from its intended location.